OBJECTIVES

Why we choose to do what we do?...

Vital medical questions need answers, and these answers invariably come at a significant cost.

The Cooper Rice-Brading Foundation (CRBF) aims to fund clinical research to find a cure for sarcoma.  We commit to providing long-term funding for sarcoma research, whilst raising awareness of sarcoma in the greater community, in an effort to promote early diagnosis.  Our patient support initiative aims to provide practical and personal support for young sarcoma patients and their families living with a sarcoma diagnosis.

 

Cooper's vision was to change the current trajectory for young sarcoma patients. Very early in his treatment for osteosarcoma, he became aware of the disparity that existed between his cancer, and other childhood cancers.  He also recognised that sarcoma had the propensity to devastate families financially and emotionally, so the requirement for an improved patient journey, and support of families was paramount to a holistic approach.  

 

His treatment options were once described to him as "dipping your hand in a box of smarties. First you try the red ones, then the yellow, then the oranges ones etc..." This was not a reflection on his stellar medical team, it was purely and simply fact.

 

Cooper felt a compelling need for change. Change in the uncertainty surrounding a sarcoma diagnosis. Change in the mortality rates which have not seen improvement for well over three decades, quantifiable change in the treatment options currently available to sarcoma patients, and change in the support offered to patients and their families,  The Foundation which proudly bears his name, will follow his vision, and our mission is to raise funding which will directly contribute to the identification and facilitation of clinical trials, and pipeline treatments which are relevant to sarcoma, whilst providing support in an array of ways, to patients and families.  In doing so, we aim to eventually tick each of the boxes of concern, which Cooper identified during his treatment.

 

CRBF will utilise the vast knowledge and reach of our Board and Executive Committee members, work with government agencies, purpose built cancer institutions, Foundations, cancer organisations and professional bodies, to enhance the team approach required to solve the answers to the questions, currently eluding our most brilliant medical minds.

 

In May of 2019, the Cooper Rice-Brading Foundation proudly announced their first grant for clinical research, in support of the IL-23 sarcoma specific trial, through the Garvan Institute of Clinical Research. 

From August 2017, CRBF welcomed the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) to our fundraising initiative, to broaden the spectrum to include funding toward scientific cancer research equipment, technology and infrastructure. These components are a critical component of finding answers to questions that currently elude our most brilliant scientific minds. CRBF has since August 2017, contributed over $40,000 to this outstanding Foundation, and we will continue this association in the hope of working closely with an organisation of this calibre,  to  ' get the job done.'

The Australia New Zealand  Sarcoma Association (ANZSA) - formerly ASSG,  was formed in January of 2007 comprising of a group of approximately 70 clinicians, mostly surgeons, with a shared interest in sarcoma. From 2009, the University of Melbourne became the administering institution for the ASSG, through Cancer Australia’s support for Cancer Clinical Research Programme.

 

Well over a decade later, the ANZSA mission is to improve outcomes for sarcoma patients and their families through research, patient care, and community awareness by the provision of basic scientific research in the laboratory, clinical trials and bench to bed-side research.  This research is very expensive, and is a complex and arduous process.  This group of highly committed, and brilliant scientific minds, have spent over a decade specialising in a cancer, that has otherwise historically been forgotten.

 

We have added the Australia New Zealand Sarcoma Association to the CRBF funding objectives for the future.